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Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Overall:

I quite enjoyed the anthology, there were high points and low points, but it worked well as a number of stories linked by a common thread, wormholes. Several of the stories also seemed to reference at least the first story, and from there others, to a lesser degree. Whether this was accidental or intentional, it worked out well. To anyone looking for a quick read of some engaging stories I recommend picking this volume up. Below I have reviewed each individual story.

The Challenge:

An intriguing story of a near future journey through a mysterious wormhole. It follows the mission commander Elaine who had been training for a long duration colonization experiment on Mars when the wormhole appears. It's nice to see a story with professionals doing their job even when the job changes suddenly. The characters are believable, interesting, and relatable. Excellent job.

Through Glassy Eyes:

Lady or the tiger. Many of us read this short story in high school, the elegant cliff hanger that left you asking what door to open. TGE is set after thr challenge and follows a mega Corp as they create, release and then deal with the fallout of the world's first networked neural implants. It's an excellent sorry and one that anyone interested in such tech should read. It is also quite similar to the short lived Web series H+ which is a must watch. A great effort with touches of mega corps and a future that while only 70 years ahead had undergone significant societal change.

Here, there, forever:

Not my favorite of the stories. It starts out promising, then takes an odd turn into fantasy. The ending does raise an interesting question though about the nature of the rest of the narrative. Quite a lot of echoing in the story however. Another edit pass would have tightened it up nicely.

AI denier:

Fonts are important, especially with the letter I. I originally went into this story thinking it was called Al denier. The story stumbles at first to get the protagonist shifted forward in time. Once in place however, it ran along fine with a woman out of time dealing with a future where the AI have taken over and turned most sentient biologic life into subjugated citizens, little better than slaves.

Flawed Perspective:

A story with a definite twist. When an earth exploration ship find itself cut off from Humanity, The Crew ally themselves with a powerful yet pacifistic race. They then take up arms against their new allies enemies and begin to carve out a new Empire for themselves. Ultimately this is a story about the corruption of power. And comma House of such corruption can blind you to your own history. An interesting read, that would probably work better as a full-on novel comma as certain advances are just glossed over in an effort to advance the plot.

The Lost Colony:

When a smuggler ship cuts it a little close trying to jump out of a protected wormhole things go very wrong for the crew. This story had me pumped from the start with a very firefly-esque crew doing their best to keep their ship flying as they evade an STA patrol and attempt to jump out system. Things don’t go to plan and they end up stranded inside the closed wormhole, looking for a way out. A fun, self contained story, that was a blast to read.

The Aeon Incident:

What happens when you combine Star Trek with Warhammer 40k? The Aeon Incident, that’s what. Be prepared for intense battle armored action, mixed with first contact protocols of Star Trek’s Federation. Action packed and fun, the twist at the end was a genuine delight.

The Doors of the Temple:

The Earth is being ravaged by a war against powerful aliens, and no idea is too outlandish to examine as a means of ending the conflict. When a widowed Ace Pilot is offered one final chance at saving the Earth using mythology and a crazed, BO ridden Irish scientist he takes it and one final ride through a wormhole like no other.

Dead Weight:

Months from rescue with a damaged ship thrown through a sudden wormhole, Captain Guan Xi Has a mystery on his hands. Who, or what is killing his crew. A fun little mystery story with some nice twists.

Webbed Prisms:

This was probably the most interesting story so far. Told from two different perspectives, on either side of the wormhole it showcases how societies differ and can changes, especially with advanced technology. I don’t want to give away too much, but would love to see this one expanded into a novel. Even so, as it stands now, it is a nicely contained story.

Anathema:

Quite an interesting story and one that diverges from the norm in a good way. The crew of the wormhole corvette Anathema must escort 4 freighters to a mining colony cut off for 16 years. What they find when they arrive changes everything.

When the Skies Open:

Not all colonies are created equal. On an Earth colony cut off from resupply generations have past and what technology that is left is in ill repair, if it functions at all. When a wormhole reopens and Earthers return they bring with them new miracles of technology and medicine, but at what price? This was a well constructed story, with the mechanics of it such that you felt the confusion of the main character as she witnesses a major change to her society and wrestles with the long terms impacts, a good read with a solid, coherent story.

A Second Infection:

This was an odd one. For the medically minded the story will be easy to follow, for others, get ready to learn a lot about how infections work. The story gets medical and metaphysical fast so might not be everyone's cup of tea, but is an interesting take on the overall subject matter.

Personal Growth:

The longest story in the anthology wraps up the book, and follows the Hong Kong based crew of a budget mission through a wormhole. Not giving away too much it works nicely with some of the other stories presented here (The Challenge, Webbed Prisms in particular) and bookends the anthology well. Clearly some talent here and a well constructed, concise tale that handles its own internal technologies, sciences, and logic well.

Monday, September 5, 2016

Book 3 of the Spiral War Saga, Rising Warriors, Rising Threat is now with the beta readers. Once I have their input I will make any necessary changes and upon receipt of the final cover art will submit the book to Kindle Scout. From there I will have 30 days to get the requisite votes to have Amazon accept the book for publication, distribution, and most importantly, promotion. When, that happens I'll be calling on all my loyal readers to help vote.

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I have not fallen off the fitness wagon, I have just been crazy busy. The week of 22 August I was on travel for work and could not blog. The following week, 29 August, and the Milestone A update, I was single dading it while my wife was on travel, and was so busy getting things and kids ready for school, and having last minute summer fun, that I couldn't get to it. I still kept exercising though and the results are in the table below.

Not only did I hit Milestone A, I beat it into the ground. Weight wise I was right on track, with a slight hitch the week before, damn you free office pizza. But the waist measurement, I was an inch ahead, heck I was at, and am still at Milestone B for waist size. I am thrilled about that. Hitting Milestone B for weight might be a bit harder to achieve.

I am getting stronger everyday, adding weight to my lifts weekly if not multiple times a week, which means muscle growth. Muscle is denser than fat, so losing weight will require stepping up the Cardio something fierce. I had intended to start doing that last week, but my youngest doesn't start kindergarten until this week, meaning I have to watch him all day. My plan was to start biking for my cardio, can't bike hard with a 5 year old. Oh well.

In other weightloss/fitness news. My gym's opening is delayed until 1st quarter 2017. The reason, their landlord won't let them do their construction at the same time as the other tenant. So the current shop needs to complete their construction first. This is frustrating, but since I repaired and reinforced my workout bench shouldn't be a huge issue. They have also opened up their preview center at the mall for members to use and demo the equipment. I will be making use of that facility soon, once the wife gets back, at least two to three times a week.

Many people have commented that they are seeing the results of my working out, even if the scale isn't. My face and body are noticably thinner, but I am finding extra skin hanging out, and that takes a while to go away.

I am very happy with how my weight loss and overall fitness are progressing, but still have a long way to go. And because it was requested, here are the first fitness log pictures I took and the latest to compare it with.

Yes there is still a belly, but it's tighter, and not as flabby. I don't see the results as much, others do, so there;s that, and I can't argue the numbers. Let's Go.

Also I will post more reviews and writing updates soon. I am also looking at doing another design day. I just have to decide on the subject of it.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

I really debated whether or not I would you review this movie. As I'm getting the blog back up and running I realize I should do more movie and book reviews. I have not seen a lot of movies this summer but this is one that friends insisted that I see. In short, I was not impressed. To put it bluntly, the movie had good bones, but just wasn't good. It focused on the wrong things.

In general, I'm not a big fan of Hollywood's endless reboots of late. For every reboot that goes well, Christopher Nolan's Batman, there are reboots that are just horrible, Terminator Genisys. Ghostbusters Falls somewhere in between.

From the day it was announced, the movie seemed to want to generate controversy. I had no issue with an all female Ghostbusters, though felt that a more integrated cast would have been better. I don't know Paul Feig's work very well, the few movies titles of his I recognize, I never saw. They just didn't look like something I or my wife wanted to see. I find Kristen Wiig hilarious in almost everything I've seen her in. I'm not a fan of Melissa Mccarthy, though I know many people who are. Rosie Jones is somewhat hit or miss with me, but I found her to be the funniest member of the cast. Erin Gilber, I don't know if I've ever seen her before, but then I haven't SNL in years.

This movie ultimately failed because it was a reboot, I think. People are sick of reboots. Audiences want original content. And in cases where a reboot or delayed sequel does come, they want it to respect the original. After the original creators of Ackroyd, Reitman, and Ramis (RIP) spent years trying to make their own reboot / continuation / hand off movie, a reboot without them bordered on insulting.

I think one of the large reasons that this movie failed is because most of the characters were one-dimensional or two dimensional at best. Let's start with the one-dimensional characters. Every male character in the movie, with the exception of the bad guy, was a one dimensional prop. Chris Hemsworth's secretary was inexcusably stupid. I hate inexcusably stupid characters. By comparison, Annie Potts' Janine from the original was a smart, sassy, funny character with attitude and some great lines. I don't know anyone who felt insulted by Annie Potts' character. By the way, her cameo in the movie was excellent, probably the best one. Andy Garcia's mayor again, completely one-dimensional.

Even the main cast was largely not fleshed out.

Kristen wiig's character, whose name I can't even remember, just fell flat. She was obviously supposed to be the Bill Murray of the group and it didn't work, which is odd, because she's a funny actress.

Melissa McCarthy's character was obviously supposed to be the Aykroyd,but none of her jokes were funny. The few I can remember revolved around her food orders getting messed up and her berating the delivery boy.

Rosie Jones honestly had some of the funniest moments in the movie. Her character was also probably the most fleshed-out. In a lot of ways, she had the most to offer to the team.

The character of Holtzmann, was supposed to be the Egon of the group. She was no Egon. The character of Egon and even Dan Akroyds's character in the originals worked because they were straight men. Egon never got the joke, he was always serious. Funny things happened around him and he didn't realize it. He'd be flirted with and didn't get it, he'd subtly tell Murray how much to charge, and it was hilarious, but he didn't see it. Dan Aykroyd's character was always over eager and into everything that was going on. Even he didn't get the joke half the time. The character of Holtzman seemed to always be setting up the next joke, most of which fell flat.

One of the things that made the original so good and also gave it a lot of depth is that busting ghosts was more than just a scientific Endeavor for these characters. It was also a business and their income source. These were scientists who had been discredited due to their findings and beliefs and had to find a way to make a living. There were multiple scenes about how they got their money and how they would eventually run out of it. Prior to busting their first ghost, Slimer, they were almost out of funds they were going to be destitute. This movie had none of that.

Beyond what was just simply supposed to be the scientific endeavor, there was no mention of where they got their funds or their equipment. The only indication about their funding and equipment, was that they stole large pieces of equipment from their University. By the way that would not have been enough to build everything they had. After that it, appeared that they built all the rest of their equipment out of scrap. I'm an engineer none of that would have worked. By having them steal all of that equipment it would have made them criminals. Also what kind of scientist, Melissa McCarthy's character, doesn't know that their equipment has a function where it moves, especially since she "designed it herself."

While on the subject of equipment. What kind of scientist tests out highly dangerous equipment in a back alley? That was beyond irresponsible and resulted in quite a bit of property damage. This also occurred after Rosie Jones entered the group, she could have given them access to unused subway tunnels or closed train yards.

Does this movie have redeemable qualities? Yes. Could this movie have been saved in the writing stages? Yes quite easily.

I'm a fixer by Nature. When I see something that could be good I want to fix it. Maybe it's the engineer in me, maybe it's the writer. Whatever the case, I see many ways in which this movie could have been fixed in small subtle ways that would have made it better.

The core movie itself was good. The Ghostbusters concept should have work in today's world. All the various Ghost Hunter shows out there prove that people are willing to believe in the existence of ghosts. The movie even references this. The movie has a lot of good references in it to the originals and to the modern world.

I will say however, that I found it shocking that only one person in the movie ever used a cellular phone. The movie seems trapped in a different age. Anyone who's seen the previews, and not the movie, will know the scene at the concert of the girl use a selfie stick, who still uses a selfie stick?, to take a picture of herself, Rosie Jones, and some kind of demon. That is the only time someone whips out a phone to take pictures. By contrast, look at the new Doctor Who. In Matt Smith's first episode, when the aliens invade, the way he tells that somebody, Rory, knows something more is going on is that he's the only one not taking pictures with his cell phone.

So how would I have changed this movie to make it better? Well there's a couple of easy fixes that I would have used:

#1: Make the movie a continuation of the original not a reboot.

There's a reference in the movie about how they've covered up similar incidents in the past obliquely regarding ghosts. That could have been worked into the movie much better to make it a full-on continuation of the original Ghostbusters. Look at Star Wars episode 7, one of the reasons it works so well was that it was a continuation of the old story bringing it into a new generation.

#2: Moving out of New York.

Now hear me out here. With a largely Saturday Night Live based cast I understand why they made it be New York again. But why not move it someplace else? Maybe it's just because I'm from the west coast and the southeast, I really don't care that much about movies based in New York that are constantly referencing things in New York. Why not move it someplace new, some place that might not get as much exposure in movies. Now that I'm based in Seattle maybe I'd like to see it someplace up with the Pacific Northwest. Or how about down for their self down in LA, or Dallas, or Chicago, or any other major or minor muscle. It did not have to be New York and by taking it out of New York it could have taken the whole concept in a fresher Direction.

#3: Have the movie be a handoff.

This could have been done this very easily. The beginning could be largely unchanged. But after they find their first ghost, they are contacted by the remaining members of the original Ghostbusters. At that point it's revealed that ghost activity has been pretty low level for the last couple decades.

It could even be a great meta reference to all the ghost hunting TV shows. The Ghostbusters themselves are funding these TV shows in order to find ghosts throughout the country. They then send in one of their regional franchises to catch any ghosts that are too dangerous or harassing to the owners of the properties.

The Ghostbusters than offer the new lady Ghostbusters a franchise. This takes care of so many issues in the movie in particular those involving funding. From there the movie could be largely unchanged you could still have these characters busting their first ghost getting caught in public at cetera. But instead of the mayor telling them that they can't be so public, it's Ghostbusters headquarters telling them this. They could then explain that with the help of the government they have kept the existence of ghosts to a minimum.

It also creates a great means of character growth. Imagine them receiving their first shipment of OG ghostbusting gear, and Holtzman commenting on how "80s" it is before souping them all up to create their new gear.

#4: More fleshed-out characters.

All of these characters could have been fleshed out a lot more. By having the movie be a continuation instead of a reboot, it would have allowed the characters to become much more their own as well. At the same time make The Supporting Cast not insulting and more real. Especially the secretary character. Chris Hemsworth's character could have been very funny very sassy very maybe not as intelligent as the rest of the crew but he didn't have to be just an idiotic pretty face. If they wanted that they should have cast Ashton Kutcher.

It would have even allowed for them to fix some of the character mistakes of the original. Winston, for instance, was originally written as an Air Force Veteran who helped teach them tactics. The studio forced the change to have him instead be a guy off the street looking for a job because Ernie Hudson was an unknown (another good cameo, but not as good as Annie Potts'). They could given that backstory to Rosie Jones' character, and it would have made a nice nod to the original as well.

#5: Make the final villain's form more original.

Don't get me wrong, that the villain was a live person manipulating ghosts was great. His final form however was far too marshmallow man like for my tastes however. I liked that he used their symbol as his final form, sort of, but it just felt off.

#6: Overuse of CGI.

This one should go without saying. In an age when practical effects are making a comeback, neon CGI ghosts just don't work anymore. Even the scariest movies of late that use ghosts hardly show the ghosts.

With those changes the movie, and even the franchise could have been saved. At this point however, it is dead in the water and I doubt that we'll get any kind of continuation.

Overall I give the move a 3/5 stars. It has the bones of a good movie, it just failed to deliver in the end.

I am noticing a change in my face now when I look in the mirror, it is slimmer. I am also lifting more weight or pushing more reps/sets everyday, so I am getting stronger and fitter. In that way the weight numbers are not as upsetting, but I am still on track for Milestone A objective in two weeks.

The problem that comes is this: My gym's opening has been delayed, possibly to October due to issues with another tenant in the building. On the plus side they will open up the preview center in the mall for members to use free of charge. We'll act as demo for the equipment. They are also looking into placing a temporary preview center in front of the gym location in portables. Neither of these is an ideal solution, but improve, adapt and overcome.

Exercise alone will not result in weight loss and to that end, this is what my diet became over the weekend and what I plan to try and keep to.

Breakfast: 1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil (solid) plus supplements (see below)
Lunch: Small, high protein lunch, minimal carbs plus supplement. This weekend the boys and I made real fruit smoothies for lunch, high fiber with protein powder. I paid for that later that day.
Dinner: Smaller portion, high protein, with salad.

Curiously enough, I'm not getting that hungry. I get more psychological hunger as my brain reminds me that it's time to eat. My stomach really isn't rumbling, except when I have too much fiber. Based on the low carb intake I could be forcing my body into ketosis, so it is burning fat much more regularly, this a good thing.

Overall, I am feeling great and think I have a real chance of getting this weight off. I will be cutting in additional supplements as needed and have taken Tumeric here and there when I felt a possible swell coming on.

Monday, August 8, 2016

Week 2 of the fitness plan. Above I posted my milestone chart with objectives and thresholds for the two major measurements, weight and waist size. My wife pointed out to me this morning at weigh and measure in that I was measuring my waist wrong. I measured it at my pant line, she said to do it and my belly button since that is where most of the fat is. She says she's also noticed a change in my physique just over the last week. I am well into this now, no turning back.

Had a slight set back this week though, got sick over the weekend, just overly fatigued, could barely move so I skipped the sunday workout. I also had some carbs on thursday (homemade oatmeal, raisin and macadema nut cookies, hey I'm not made of stone.) Friday (free pizza in the break room, again, stone man I am not.) Sunday a pita sandwich at the airshow and pho for dinner.

Onto the numbers:

I am engineer, as well as a writer, let's go over my current numbers, which I will update weekly:

Height: 6'Weight: 246lbs (at Milestone A threshold, 40% of objective, figuring on a start weight of 250 lbs)Waist Size: 43" (pant line)Belly Size: 45"Neck Size: 18.5" Bicep Size: 18"Thigh Size: 27.5" Calf Size: 18" Chest Size: 46"I need to review and make sure that I am taking measures at consistent places. The increase in neck, bicep and thigh especially are surprising. On the other hand, I have increased the amount of weight I am lifting, so that I am getting stronger again. The biggest problem with that is that my cheap weight bench might not be able to carry much more, and I don't have that many weights left. Guess I need to run to goodwill and grab some more weighs and home depot to get some bar stock to reinforce the bench.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Don't shoot me. I am not here to bash trek. I enjoy the heck out of Trek, but STID, while it had the potential to be great, was just bad. A lot of that was lack of self identity and horrid writing, seriously bad writing. So bad that I had to list nine scenes minimum to fix the story.

This movie could have been great. It should not have been a retelling of TWOK but of Space Seed. Imagine changing just these scenes and how it would have changed, and maybe improved the film:

1: Opening, Kirk and McCoy distract the aliens so that the Big-E can blast open the caldera of the volcano from the opposite side, or beneath the water, venting the volcano harmlessly. The shuttle must provide targeting data however and crashes due to proximity to the volcano, mandating the Big-E to go atmospheric and reveal itself to save Spock. You have inherently the same scene with Spock; waiting for the inevitable before Kirk rushes in to the rescue without the need for the silly underwater scenes (sorry spaceships aren't built to go underwater, Scotty even comments on that).

2: Kirk does not lose his command due to the potential political fallout. Instead Admiral Pike will transfer his flag to the Enterprise in order to keep Kirk on a tighter leash. Remember, Kirk and crew saved the Earth in the last movie, to send him back to the academy would make the public question Starfleet in a huge way. If instead, they just see an Admiral actually command the fleet's flagship, they will accept that much more readily.

3: The transwarp pod (the biggest Pandora's box in the movie) doesn't send Kahn to Kronos, but to a freighter passing by the Sol system. Kirk and crew then rush off after it instead after seeing that its course has changed towards Klingon Terrritory. Scotty also remarks that the pod burned itself out upon usage (just like the one that beemed him and Kirk to the Big-E in the last film).

4: The Kirk/Scotty argument proceeds much the same, but Kirk begins to see the cracks in what is going on, and instead of firing Scotty, subtly sends him to investigate.

5: Added scene, Kirk and Crew catch up to the freighter, after several days and the captain (Mudd?) reveals that Kahn commandeered a shuttle to escape to Kronos. The timeframe issue in this movie was just bad, no Trek movie, series, or book has ever said that Earth and Kronos were within a day of each other. Several movies of late have done this, either having a nebulously short time line (SW-VII), or making everything seem to take place in an absurdly short amount of time (Ghostbusters 2016).

6. Make mention that the abandoned area of Kronos where they find Kahn is that way due to Nuclear Fallout. This will come into play later, and explain some of McCoy's motivations to study Kahn's blood.

"He spent enough time in that irradiated waste land to kill you three times already, Jim. He has an unusual resistance to radiation."

7: Scotty takes the coordinates Kahn provides and uses a repaired Transwarp pod to beam to the top secret facility without his little buddy. Remember, this is a top secret facility, and he just flies on in with the rest of the crew with no identification and no question asked. Also, a little easter egg could be thrown in here and after Scotty beams aboard the Vengeance, Porthos materializes after years of being trapped in a matter stream from Scotty's experiment he mentioned in the last film.

8: While the Enterprise is falling towards Earth, again after taking several days to get back, Spock informs Kahn that they have his crew alive but unless they save the Enterprise his crew will die. Kahn teleports direct to engineering and prevents Kirk from entering the warp core. He then saves the Enterprise, forcing a debt upon Kirk and asks Kirk to take his crew someplace safe, where they and the Federation won't come into contact. But he also asks that he send his body with them, so that they can mourn properly.
Kirk and Spock can still have a scene, not as touching, where Spock comments how Kirk was about to sacrifice himself to save the ship. Also have McCoy pronounce Kahn dead, but put back into a stasis pod.

9: Instead of the Vengeance crashing, the restored Big-E, and other ships, able to get out of Space Dock in an emergency, grab the ship before it can crash, saving millions of lives. This was another major plot hole, where did all those other ships in space dock go? I get that the captains of several ships were killed by Kahn earlier, but none of those ships had crews that could fly them?

10: Kirk implores the Federation to allow him to deliver Kahn's body, and the rest of his crew, to an out of the way, in hospitable world they discovered (Ceti-Alpha Six) where they will live without technology in the hopes that they will eventually develop a more peaceful society. This leads into McCoy complaining that he wanted to study Kahn longer, and his remarkable resistance to radiation, and a post credits scene where we see Kahn's colony some time later (years preferably). We see a man plowing a field, he looks up and smiles, revealing that Kahn is still alive.

Ok, so that went long and was ten scenes. There would be some other small, subtle changes as a result of these, but that would, IMHO, take care of many of the issues people had with the film, and create an ability to have a true NuTrek TWOK later on down the line, or allow a possible remerge of the timelines.﻿

Also, STID created several big Pandora's Boxes: The Transwarp Pod (makes ships all but obsolete), Kahn's super blood (renders people immune to death), Super Fast Warp Drive (can cross distance to major adversary's planet and back in two days), Super Torpedoes (Can be fired distances of light years away). These changes close the lids on those boxes and mitigates the issues they created. Is it perfect, no, is it better, I think so.

Will I do one of these for ST: Beyond? I don't think so. I thoroughly enjoyed that movie, and while there were some plot holes, none of them were movie breaking. It was a fun movie. As for my next movie to go after, I am open to suggestions.